1769. ROUND THE WORLD. ' 229 



Where intemperance produces no diseases, there 

 will be no physicians by profession ; yet where there 

 is suiFerance, there will always be attempts to relieve ; 

 and where the cause of the mischief and the remedy 

 are alike unknown, these will naturally be directed 

 by superstition : thus it happens, that in this country, 

 and in all others which are not further injured by 

 luxury, or improved by knowledge, the management 

 of the sick falls to the lot of the priest. The method 

 of cure that is practised by the priests of Otaheite, 

 consists chiefly of prayers and ceremonies. When he 

 visits his patient he repeats certain sentences, which 

 appear to be set forms contrived for the occasion, 

 and at the same time plats the leaves of the cocoa- 

 nut into different figures very neatly ; some of these 

 he fastens to the fingers and toes of the sick, and 

 often leaves behind him a few branches of the 

 tJiespecia popuhiea, which they call E^midho : these 

 ceremonies are repeated till the patient recovers or 

 dies. If he recovers, they say the remedies cured 

 him ; if he dies, they say the disease was incurable; 

 in which perhaps they do not much differ from the 

 custom of other countries. 



If we had judged of their skill in surgery from the 

 dreadful scars which we sometimes saw, we should 

 have supposed it to be much superior to the art, not 

 only of their physicians, but of ours. We saw one 

 man whose face was almost entirely destroyed, his nose, 

 including the bone, was perfectly flat, and one cheek 

 and one eye were so beaten in, that the hollow would 

 almost receive a man's fist, yet no ulcer remained; 

 and our companion, Tupia, had been pierced quite 

 through his body by a spear, headed with the bone 

 of the sting-ray, the weapon having entered his back, 

 and come out just under his breast; but except in 

 reducing dislocations and fractures, the best surgeon 

 can contribute very little to the cure of a wound ; 

 the blood itself is the best vulnerary balsam, and 

 when the juices of the body are pure, and the 



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